Answering a question from America's Vatican correspondent, Pope Francis indicated he has not spoken directly to President Putin since the war started.

Francis has long desired to visit Malta where, according to the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul was shipwrecked in 60 A.D. while en route to Rome, where he had asked to be judged.

“If Putin says something on Tuesday, the Russian Patriarch has to say the same thing on Wednesday but just putting the word ‘God’ into the sentence,” David Nazar, S.J., said in an exclusive interview with Gerard O’Connell.

On Day 32 of the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis made another passionate appeal to political leaders “to understand that every day of war makes worse the situation for everyone.”

The pope recorded the messages in the spur-of-the-moment when he received the new bishop of Hong Kong, Bishop Stephen Chow Sau Yan, S.J., in a private audience at the papal library in the Vatican’s apostolic palace.

Some commentators have called this  “revolutionary,” but others say it has deep roots in church tradition.

“I invite every community and every one of the faithful to join with me next Friday, March 25, the solemnity of the Annunciation, in making this solemn act of consecration of humanity.”

“Praedicate Evangelium” allows for greater involvement of lay men and women in church governance and assigns the protection of minors a central place in the Curia’s structure. 

The first Protestant ever to be employed as an editor by L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican daily newspaper, has published a 367-page book on the ecumenical journey of the first Latin American pope.

America has learned the meeting between the two religious leaders was first planned a week ago. It was not confirmed who initiated the exchange, but it was the first time the two have spoken since this war broke out.